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INTERNET PARSHA SHEET

ON Behar Bechukosai - 5764

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From: Don't Forget [ To: Counting The Omer Reminder List

Subject: [Sefira/Omer] Day 39 / 5 weeks and 4 days Tonight, the evening of Friday, May 14, will be day 39, which is 5 weeks and 4 days of the omer. Your friends at Torah.org Sefira, Copyright © 2004 by Torah.org. The Counting The Omer Reminder Mailing List ______

From Michael Fiskus <> Please say tehilim for Chaya Asna bas Rachel

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From: covenant.conversation
@CHIEFRABBI.ORG

Subject: Covenant & Conversation

Torah Thoughts by the Chief Rabbi

DR. JONATHAN SACKS

Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth

Bechukotai [From 5763]

THE BOOK OF VAYIKRA REACHES A CLIMAX with an account of the blessings and curses attendant on Israel's obedience, or lack of it, to the terms of the covenant. The blessings are relatively brief. The curses (known as the tochakhah) are, by contrast, set out at length and with elemental power. They are terrifying. To this day we recite them in a low voice, barely above a whisper. From the perspective of the twenty-first century, secular time, they read like Holocaust literature (which is not to say - G-d forbid - that the Holocaust was a punishment for sin). This is the dark side of covenant. It may be (it is) a privilege to be chosen by G-d, but it is also an awesome responsibility. As the prophet Amos says, in a verse at once paradoxical yet definitive of the Jewish destiny: "You only have I known of all the families of the earth: therefore I will punish you for all your iniquities" (3:2). 1

One verse in the tochakhah, however, gave rise to one of the great doctrines of Judaism:

"They shall stumble over one another" - one because of another. This teaches that all Israel are responsible (literally "sureties") for one another. 2

The rule of Kol Yisrael Arevin Ze Bazeh - the Jewish people is collectively, not just individually, responsible before G-d - is one of the great principles of rabbinic Judaism, and in explaining it the sages gave a number of striking metaphors:

Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai taught: It can be compared to people on a boat. One took out an awl and began boring a hole in the boat beneath his seat. The others said to him, "What are you doing?" He replied, "Is that any concern of yours? [I am not boring a hole beneath your seat] but only under mine." They said: "But you will sink the whole ship, and we will all drown."3

It is the way of the world that if a person takes a bundle [agudah] of reeds and tries to break them together he cannot. If, however, the sticks are taken one by one, even a child can break them. So too with Israel: they are redeemed only when they form one band [agudah achat]. 4

"A [holy] nation" - this teaches that they [the Jewish people] are like one body with one soul [the midrash identifies goi, a nation, with the word geviyah, a body], and thus it says, "Who is like your people Israel, a nation one on earth." When one sins, all are punished, as it says, "Did not Achan ben Zerach sin in the matter of devoted things, and wrath fell upon all the congregation of Israel, and he did not perish alone for his iniquity" (Joshua 22:20). When one is injured, all feel the pain. 5

The idea of collective destiny and responsibility is more than a metaphor. It is constitutive of Jewish identity. The covenant at Mount Sinai was made not with individuals alone but with a people - an entire people, righteous and not yet righteous alike. This principle has many halakhic ramifications (among them, for example, the rule that one person can recite a commandment-blessing of behalf of another even though he has already fulfilled the mitzvah. As Ritva [Chiddushei ha-Ritva, Rosh Hashanah 29a] 6 explains, this is based on the idea that I am responsible for your fulfilment of the commands. Therefore even though I have already fulfilled my personal duty, I can make a blessing over yours and exempt you thereby, because your duty is in a sense mine as well).

To be a Jew is to be part of a people, sharing its joys, participating in its griefs, recalling its history, making its hopes my own. That is why our most basic prayers, even our confessions, are in the first person plural. The primary experience of Judaism is not that of "the lonely man of faith" but rather of being part of the community of faith. More significantly, Martin Buber misrepresented the spiritual encounter as "I-Thou." In Judaism it is fundamentally We-Thou.

ONE QUESTION, not widely raised by the commentators, is however of the essence. Let us remind ourselves of the prooftext the rabbis took for the principle of collective responsibility:

As for those of you who survive, I will send faintness into their hearts in the lands of their enemies. The sound of a driven leaf shall put them to flight, and they shall flee as one flees from the sword, and they shall fall though no one is pursuing them. They shall stumble over one another, as if to escape the sword, though no one pursues; and you shall have no power to stand against your enemies. 7

This is an extraordinary place in which to locate the idea. First, it is not the plain sense of the verse. "Stumbling over one another" is not a description of a nation bound by a sense of shared duty. To the contrary, it is a description of panic, as people fall over one another in their efforts to escape. Second, the passage is not speaking of strength-in-unity but about weakness and fear. The third difficulty, though, is the most fundamental.

It should not be necessary to search for a prooftext for the idea that the Jewish people flourishes and suffers together. The whole of the Chumash is dedicated to this principle. It is basic to Moses' vision and to the people's experience. They suffered slavery together. They experienced liberation together. If a text were needed, the second paragraph of the Shema would do as well as any: "If you are careful to heed my commandments . . . I will give the rain for your land in its season . . . and you will eat and be satisfied . . . Be careful that your heart not be tempted to go astray . . . The land will not give forth its crops, and you will rapidly vanish from the good land that G-d is giving you." Why then search for so recherché a source when the whole Torah testifies to this idea?

THE ANSWER, I believe, is fundamental. It is not too much to say that the whole of Jewish history subsequent to the fall of the Second Temple depended on it. The idea that "all Israel are responsible for one another" is not, in and of itself, unusual. It is part of the normal experience of any people living in the same land, under the same political system and sovereign power. When the rain falls, it falls on the righteous and wicked alike. When there is drought, all farmers suffer, whatever their virtue or lack of it. When a nation is at peace, and its economy strong, most people benefit. When government breaks down and anarchy takes its place, the suffering is general and widespread. Within a societal or national context, fate is shared. Though some are rich and some poor, some healthy and others stricken by disease, there is a sense in which the general conditions of life affect all. What made biblical Israel unique when it was a nation in its land were many things, but not this.

The concept of collective responsibility was not problematic in biblical times. It became so after the devastating tragedy of defeat at the hands of the Romans - first, when the Temple was destroyed, then, some sixty years later, with the suppression of the Bar Kochba revolt and the subsequent Hadrianic persecutions. The Jewish people lost its most basic institutions, its sovereignty (or autonomy) and its national life. There were no more kings or prophets. There was no Temple, no sacrifices, no central site of collective worship. Little by little, Israel ceased to be the home of most Jews. The intellectual centre moved to Babylon. There were significant Jewish communities elsewhere: in Egypt and many parts of Europe. Israel was no longer a nation in the conventional sense: a people living in a single territory under the same government. It was in exile, but a more profound, scattered exile than Jews had ever known before.

It was then that the question arose in all its force and potential tragedy: Is Israel still a nation? If so, how? In what respect? By virtue of what characteristic? Yes, to be sure, Jews shared memories, dreams, prayers. But within two or three generations, memories fade, dreams falter, and prayers, unanswered, slowly lapse into silence. It was the deepest crisis in Jewish history. And it was then that from the very heart of tragedy the sages rescued a vestige of hope. The covenant of Sinai was still in force. The Jewish people were still bound by its terms. They were therefore still a nation - constituted by the responsibility they had undertaken together, first at Sinai, then on the banks of the Jordan at the end of Moses' life, then again in the last days of Joshua, and subsequently during the period of Israel's kings and in the days of Ezra. Bound to G-d, they were bound to one another. That is what Saadia Gaon meant when he made his famous remark that "Our people is a people only in virtue of its Torah." No other nation ever constituted itself in such a way. Lacking all the normal prerequisites of nationhood - territory, proximity, sovereignty - Jews remained even in exile a people, the world's first global people, the first ever virtual community, a community not in space but in the mind, held together solely by the invisible filaments of collective belonging, shared fate and mutual responsibility.

It is now dazzlingly clear why the sages chose their prooftext from this most poignant of all biblical passages, the curses of Bechukotai. All other Mosaic texts refer to Israel's fate as a nation in, or journeying toward, its own land. This passage alone spoke of exile and the "hiding of the face" of G-d. "They shall stumble over one another - one because of another. This teaches that all Israel are responsible for one another." This strange and apparently unintelligible act of exegesis is one of the most majestic of all leaps of the rabbinic imagination in discerning the deep underlying meaning of Torah. Though they may be scattered across the world, divided by space, language, culture and outward fortune, Jews remain a people, inextricably bound to one another in and through their covenant with G-d. Though they are parted physically, they remain united spiritually, and that unity will one day give them the strength to return to G-d and to the land He gave their ancestors. And so it happened. For almost two thousand years Jews were sustained as a nation by faith alone. They preserved it, and it preserved them. Thus was a curse turned into a blessing, and a description of weakness turned into a source of indomitable strength.

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TorahWeb.org

RABBI YONASAN SACKS

KEDUSHAS HAZMAN

Shabbos and Yom Tov reflect two distinct models of kedusha. Although we are obligated to recite Kiddush each Shabbos, the essence and kedusha of Shabbos is kvia vkayma, set and predetermined. This aspect of Shabbos is evident in the beracha of “mekadesh haShabbos”.

Yom tov, however, reflects a different foray into kedushas hazman. The onset of yom tov, which is generally linked to specific calendar dates, is dependent on the Sanhedrin and Keneses Yisroel who determine Rosh Chodesh. This unique element of yom tov is reflected in the beracha of “mekadesh Yisroel vhazmanim”.

The Meshech Chochma explains that a similar distinction can be made between Shemitah and Yovel. The Toras Kohanim comments, "kshem shene'emar b'Shabbos Bereishis 'Shabbos Lashem', kach ne'emar b'Shevi'is Shabbos Lashem". Shemitah, like Shabbos, posses a fixed kedusha which is not dependent on kedushas beis din. The beginning of the Shemitah year automatically renders fields ownerless and prohibits the farmer from guarding and tending his field. Similarly, the Mordechai explains, that Shevi'is annuls loans, even if the lender fails to declare "meshamet ani boch". The very purpose of Shevi'is, which is to reaffirm "ki li kol ha'aretz", is an essential theme of Shabbos itself.

Yovel, however parallels yom tov. Just as Rosh Chodesh and yom tov require kiddush beis din, so too the Torah emphasizes “v'kidashtem es shnas hachamishim shana.” the very term “lochem” so essential to kiddush hachodesh - “hachodesh hazeh lochem” - is used to describe the essence of Yovel - “kadosh tihiye lochem”. Just as yom tov serves as a zecher l'yetsias Mitzrayim, where we acknowledge our freedom, so too Yovel is a time when all Jewish slaves must be freed.

Both models of kedusha characterize kedushas Eretz Yisroel. On one level, Eretz Yisroel posses an inherent and intrinsic kedusha, independent of Keneses Yisroel. Complete kedushas ha'aretz however, requires the active participation of Bnai Yisroel.

Shemitah and Yovel teach us to recognize, appreciate and create kedusha. May we be worthy of this lofty privilege.

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TorahWeb from last year

RABBI YAAKOV NEUBURGER

AMEILUS B'TORAH

Many an inspirational talk in Yeshiva halls (sichas musar) have invoked the opening Rashi of Bechukosai, making it part of the lexicon of expressions of the Jewish people. Typically, Rashi aims to resolve the seeming redundancy of the first Pasuk, "If you will follow my laws and observe my commandments and do them". Interpreting the first phrase to mean "Shetiheyu ameilim baTorah" - that you should toil and extend unmeasured efforts in the study of Torah - we are thus assured peace, prosperity and pride if we invest ourselves in the study of Torah with the purpose of maintaining and observing mitzvos. Once again, at the parallel text introducing the actual tochecha, where Hashem prepares us for some of the worst moments of our past, Rashi reminds us that all of that came to be, because our spiritual lives unraveled starting with the lack of "ameilus batorah".

These comments of Rashi pose several questions worth pondering. Is it possible that our national fortune depends on what we have come to see as the experience of a stage of life or at most a small segment of our people? In other words, how can the total immersion in study become the test for people who due to circumstances may only be able to spend small parts of one's day in Torah study? Further, how does Rashi see in the phrase "If you will walk with my laws" a reference to being absorbed by Torah study?

A careful look shows us that Hashem chose the word "chok" rather than mishpat or mitzva to express "laws". Additionally, Hashem chose "if you will walk" rather than "observe" or "do" to express the required action. Why this choice of words? The term "chok" usually denotes laws whose reasons have been hidden from us, and thus our allegiance to them is a testament to our acceptance of a higher authority of infinitely greater wisdom. "Walking" connotes a consistent activity which will lay claim to some goal or destination. Thus the "ameilus", the investment referred to, is the unstinting dedication to a source of wisdom far beyond ourselves. Let's explain.

It seems to me that there are two forms or sources of ameilus which are indeed shared by all those who study, irrespective of station in life or whether one has eighteen hours a day or several hours a week.

The intense effort to understand a text or an idea is rooted in the unabiding trust we have in the depth of Torah ideas that emanate from Hashem. Because of this trust, we are sure that when we delve into Torah insights will emerge. In other words, the commitment to the observance of "chok" also pushes us to investigate Torah.

Additionally one can make great investment and effort through an ongoing, i.e. "walking", schedule of learning.

One can now well understand that pursuit of study is the ultimate test of our observance and hence the focus of our parsha.

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From: RABBI YISSOCHER FRAND [ Sent: May 13, 2004 "RavFrand" List - Rabbi Frand on Parshas Behar Bechukosai

Misery Loves Company

Parshas Behar contains both the mitzvah of the Shmitah [Sabbatical] year and the mitzvah of the Yovel [Jubilee] year. The Yovel year follows seven of the seven-year Shmitah cycles. This 50th year was basically an extra year of Shmitah, an extra year of "rest" for the land.